1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to operational control of a mobile communication terminal. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for allowing a user to select and change application programs that are loaded on a terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional mobile communication terminal (hereinafter referred to as a ‘terminal’) provides not only a voice communication service but also various additional application programs such as a camera function, a multimedia player function, a messaging function, and the like. However, a user of a conventional terminal must utilize the additional application programs only in a manner defined by a manufacturer/provider as shown in FIG. 1A. That is, as illustrated in FIG. 1A, the additional application programs of the terminal are automatically loaded and presented as icons on a user interface screen by the terminal.
In the conventional manner defined by the manufacturer/provider, an operating system of the conventional terminal does allow a user to selectively register or deregister items as menu items. That is, the conventional terminal allows a user to select or register which of the additional functions will appear as icons on the user interface screen.
However, the registration and deregistration performed by the user merely refers to the addition and deletion of the connection to the user interface. In other words, the registration/deregistration only refers to selection of the corresponding icon to be illustrated on the user interface. It does not imply that the specific application program, including its middleware, engine, and related library, are added or deleted to or from the terminal memory.
As a result, application programs that are selected for deregistration because they are not actually used by the user are still loaded in the terminal memory as shown in FIG. 1B. Furthermore, the application's related data and system files are also loaded in the memory. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1B, even though the PICTURES function is not used by the user, as indicated by 0 bits being stored in association with that function, the PICTURES application itself is still loaded in the terminal memory.
To address the inefficiency created when the unused application programs and their system files are loaded in to the memory, suggested methods attempt to enhance the memory utilization by setting a timer, periodically checking validity of data in the memory at regular intervals, and deleting invalid data from the memory.
However, those suggested methods do not truly address the poor memory utilization because the unused application programs and their system files still effectively remain in the memory all the time.